


Tumbleweeds

by Endangered_Slug



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Bonnie and Clydeish AU, F/M, Romance, Rumbelle Secret Santa 2015, Total AU, adventure and mayhem but on a small scale, great depression au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5758228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endangered_Slug/pseuds/Endangered_Slug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1934, The Great Depression. Gold had once been a wealthy businessman who lost everything in the stock market crash. He now travels from town to town along the rails, doing his best to stay alive. One day, he walks into a small town to find himself smack in the middle of a bank robbery. He recognizes the robber as his former maid, Belle French. He helps her escape and they ride off into the sunset and they embark on a crime spree with a surprising consequences.</p>
<p>A backup RSS for ofheroismandsacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tumbleweeds

**Maine, 1934**

Wallace Gold plodded down the dusty dirt lane, the sound of the train’s distant whistle  blaring as it sped away from this indistinguishable, downtrodden town, one of a thousand along its line, heading towards another one just like it.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, his fingers digging into the corners in search of a hidden coin, but he found none. He didn’t expect to find anything — there hadn’t been money in his pocket for weeks, but the instinct to search was still there, lingering in a false hope that had him choking back tears late at night when the moon was shrouded by dark clouds and his fire had gone out. There wasn’t much room for crying these days. Poor people didn’t have time for crying. He knew this because he had once been wealthy — even by a rich man’s standards. Well, he was rich no longer, the stock market crash and seen to that and what the banks didn’t take, his ex-wife did.

Everything he had was gone now. His wife, his son, his fortune, his house and lands, his job, and his self-respect. Now he rode the rails like every other washed up has-been, trying to earn enough every day for a meal at the least, a room for the night if he was very lucky.  Gold was fortunate in one respect, he’d made his fortune; had fought and scraped and scraped together every last cent, making deals and performing questionable activities until he’d saved up enough money to go to America where he’s struck it big. He was no stranger to hardship, no stranger to going without and starving and having to make the difficult decision of whether to eat that day or the next, but, age and comfort had softened him and there was a profound difference between being a twenty-four year old man coming up in the world and being a forty-five year-old man on his way out.

His clothes hung off his body and there was newspaper stuffed in his shoes and a hole on the top of his left shoe where his toe had begun to peek out, but still had a small satchel that held a small tin cup and a few treasures he’d found along his travels. His hair had grown out, long and scraggly and graying rapidly. It had been years since he’d had a haircut and months since he’d seen the working end of a razor. He looked and felt like a tumbleweed — dusty and rumpled, moving from town to town as the wind blew, no home or family to call his own and no place to rest a minute while he gathered his wits enough to start over.

With the crash had come harsh vagrancy laws. Small towns had enough problems without itinerant workers coming in to muck up their already shaky infrastructure. He’d been run out, arrested, and blocked from entering more boroughs than he could safely count in the three years since he lost his home, but he’d had a good feeling about the small town he’d chosen to stop at for the night.

The sign at the depot had read Storybrooke and Gold remembered it as being a quaint little place full of fishermen and loggers — rough folk, but good work— and he walked faster in anticipation of picking up work. A bad fall from a moving train had broken his ankle when he first started riding the rails and hadn’t yet learned how to roll out of a train before it reached the depot — it was now irrevocably damaged and difficult to walk on for long periods of time and he would always have a limp, but he was still good with his hands and his brain still worked fine. He’s survived this long and he expected to outlive the crisis that had gripped the nation — if only to prove his ex-wife wrong.

The town was hanging on by the looks of it. The diner was still there and Gold’s stomach flared to life with an aching rumble in remembrance of her apple pies with the flaky crusts she used to have. The florists had closed down as well as the library, but he could see the fisherman out on the docks, hauling in their day’s catch. If anything, he may be able to talk himself into a small fish for dinner.

He walked on, striding with as much confidence as a man could when he looked as bedraggled as he did. He would start at the docks, then, if they proved to be a bust, he’d head up to the mill and see if there was anything there.

Main Street on a Tuesday was mostly quiet with a few people walking about their business, all flower print grain sack dresses or dour woolen suits depending on who they were. They looked at him closely, these people who were just going about their normal business, but no one stopped him or called the sheriff, so Gold felt more self-assured as he went.

The sun was strong that early morning, shining down on his uncovered head, warming him from the top down and it felt like a good sign to Gold, setting down in Storybrooke instead of taking his luck elsewhere.

He turned the corner at First Street, just passed the bank where an old truck was idling at the curb and for a moment he was tempted to simply hop in the cab and take it, but it had been decades since he’d stolen anyone’s conveyance and he had yet to be reduced to such acts of villainy again. Not these days when everyone was hurting. The waterfront glittered just beyond the docks, shining like the gem that was once inset into his golden ring before he pawned it, when a gunshot rang out in the sleepy little town, startling seagulls, sailors, and stragglers alike.

The screaming came next and Gold turned around, his instincts telling him to run away as fast and far as he could because no one would think twice about pinning whatever deed that happened inside that bank on him, but just as he was about to hobble his way back to the train station, someone came running out of the bank — a woman in a faded blue dress, a large straw hat pulled down over her head and a faded bandanna covering her face from the nose down. She held a bulging sack in one hand and a black gun in the other. She was looking over her shoulder towards the lobby heading straight for him and Gold had a mind that, if he caught this woman, there may be a reward for him. Money or a job — dinner at the very least — so, swallowing his own racing heart, he reached out and grabbed her arm.

Startled, she whipped her head around and that's when he noticed the bright blue of her eyes above the bandanna hiding her face. He _knew_ this woman. Belle French, his maid for several years and the very last person he had to dismiss when everything turned to shit. He hated to see her go at the time, but there was no money left to pay her. He thought she’d easily find another job despite the bad economy, she was smart and resourceful and pretty. Who wouldn't hire her? And why the hell did she turn to robbing banks?  

“ _Belle_ ,” he whispered, falteringly. “Is that _you_?”

Her eyes widened in recognition and he released her in haste, torn about what to do. Turning her in was absolutely out of the question. Belle had been one of the few lights in his life even before the stock market crashed and his world turned on its head, he couldn’t live with himself if he’d helped send her to jail.

She backed away, looking over his shoulder at the truck chugging away before dragging her eyes back to him, fear clearly written in those crystal blue orbs. He realized then that this was her getaway car. He stood between her and freedom and he was paralyzed to move out of her path.

She backed away from him, panic welling in her eyes when the yelling inside got louder. Whatever she did to stun them inside had worn off and she was now in danger of being caught. Beautiful, sweet Belle who wouldn't harm anyone.  

She turned and ran on her sturdy brown shoes, disappearing around the corner just as the bank manager and several angry men spilled out of the bank’s doors like ants, their faces purple with rage and yelling for the police.

One of them, a pompous looking man, well-dressed and overly groomed with an overly large belly in this day and age of hunger, looked at Gold suspiciously, taking note of his rough and unkempt appearance.

There was a silver watch chain leading from one strained button over to a fob pocket with, no doubt, an equally shiny and expensive watch attached to the end and Gold felt his eyes drawn to it before his attention was grabbed by the man once more.

“You there!” the man said, pointing at Gold with an accusatory finger, breaking away from the crowd. “Where did she go?” he growled as he stood, looming over him as if to blot out the sun.

Gold didn’t think twice, just pointed a finger in the direction of the docks, the opposite way Belle had run, before stammering out a half-hearted apology. The man was too close, his breath smelling of meat and cigars, glared at him until Gold, feeling that his time in Storybrooke was best cut short, turned on his heel and hopped in the waiting truck, tossing his knapsack in the bed of the truck. His cane bumped on the gearshift before he settled it next to him then he bravely lurched forward as he shifted the gears. He had a mild panic at first — it had been years since he’d driven anything at all, but muscle memory kicked in and the truck was rolling along with a burst of exhaust that left the bank manager doubled over in a coughing fit.

He tootled the horn as he turned the corner, the pocket watch dangling from his fingers as he sped away.

Belle had run two blocks before he’d pulled up beside her, the engine sputtering at the rough treatment to its gears. Surprise was evident in her startled blue eyes, but she didn’t hesitate to toss the bag of money in first before pulling herself up into the cab.

She pulled down the bandanna, gasping for air and stared at him, open-mouthed as he stomped on the gas pedal, sending a trail of dust behind them.

“You forgot something,” he told her, passing the watch to her with a sly half smile.

She took it from him, her blue eyes widening in surprise, running her fingers over the filigree work then opening it up to check the inside. There was no picture or no inscription to it and she snapped it shut and tucked it in a hidden pocket on the side of her dress.

“Mr. Gold?” she asked, falteringly, in that strange and beautiful accent and Gold remembered with some shame that the last time she’d seen him, he had been better dressed than the former owner of that watch; his was hair shorter and pomaded, his face clean shaven and splashed with an expensive cologne imported from France, and his shoes shone like mirrors. It had been along time since he’d cared about his appearance, but it had been a long time since it mattered. That she’d recognized him underneath the scruffy beard and his long hair was a miracle.

“Aye,” he said, keeping his attention on the road ahead of him for an hour, taking any road that had been paved to keep from leaving any trail, but it was Maine and this part of the country was poor so they found themselves on trails that grew rougher with each passing mile. The forest grew thicker around them and it was the first time in a long time he’d been off the train route, on his own with the wind in his hair, sitting next to a remarkably pretty woman who was staring up at him as if he’d dropped out of the sky.

“How-how long have you had the truck?” she asked finally.

Gold turned to her in confusion, her upturned face staring at him curiously. “What do you mean? Isn't this your truck?” It had been outside waiting for her hadn't it?

Her mouth opened in shock before she told him, “I don't own a car, Mr. Gold.”

He sat up straight, bony elbows nearly poking holes through his threadbare jacket, staring ahead as comprehension dawned on him. “Are you-are you telling me that I just stole someone’s _truck_?” he asked in growing horror. He had no qualms with petty theft. A nickel here, an apple there, it was what kept him alive for the past four years, but this was a poor man’s truck. This was stealing a livelihood.

“It's about as mind-boggling as me robbing that bank, isn’t it?” she replied, her eyes twinkling.

The absurdity of it all took over and he laughed, belly deep, for what felt like the first time since 1929 until his sides ached and he had to stop the car completely to keep from running off the road. They were deep in the woods now and  he could barely see the blue sky above them through the thick overhang of branches and, if he’d managed to shake of any pursuit, he thought they could spend an easy night camping out here if they decided to stay put.

They sat, grinning stupidly at each other, their eyes meeting shyly before glancing away smiling at nothing at all, their giggles fading away into silence before Belle suddenly burst into tears.

He panicked. He wouldn’t admit it if asked, but he was helpless when a woman cried in front of him. Always had been. His hands hovered over her uselessly before he gave in to his instincts, gently pulling her in for a hug, wrapping his arms around her in as soothing a manner as he could. She was boney underneath her faded blue dress and he could feel every one of her ribs and her shoulder blades poked at him as she wept on his dirty jacket. Poor girl. She’d been suffering, too.

“Why’d you do it?” he asked, finally, when her sobs had calmed down and she pulled away with a sheepish apologetic look. He let her slip out of his arms

“I don’t know,” she said, sniffling loudly. “I was there because Mr. Spencer made me an offer. He said-he said his wife was barren and they wanted a child. He was willing to pay and give room and board. He wasn't interested in adoption, he— well he—”

“You don't have to spell it out. I understand completely. So Mr. Spencer was trying to coerce you?”

“I was supposed to give him my answer today and as I was standing there waiting for him to come out of his office it just struck me that I really, really didn't want to do it. I couldn't go through with any of it, but I felt trapped. My library had closed, oh, six months ago now? I couldn’t stay at the boarding house any longer... I was out of money, but I just didn't want to.”

“So you robbed the place instead?”

She choked out a laugh into his lapel, shaking her head slowly as she pulled away, looking down at her hands curled up in her lap. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. I dunno what happened. I just… I snapped and the next thing I knew, I’d grabbed the gun from the guard’s holster, had a sack bursting full of money, and was firing up at the ceiling like Annie Oakley.”

“So let me get this straight,” he said, leaning down to see her face. “Thus far you have thwarted a man with influence, disarmed a police officer and robbed a bank. It's been a busy day for you, Miss French.”

A dimple flashed and she bit her lip with her tiny white teeth as she contemplated her actions, clearly pleased with how things had turned out in the end. “Don't forget you stole a truck,” she reminded him, bumping her shoulder against him.

He hung his head, shaking it. “I'm trying to do just that actually.” He looked up, then, catching her warm gaze before she blushed and glanced away.

She held up the money bag. “Shall we, uh, tally it up and see what we have?”

“Why not? May as well find out if it was all worth it, yeah?”

They hopped out of the truck and Gold built a fire while Belle counted, stacking the money in between them.

“How much?” he asked when she finished counting, tapping the bills until they settled into two even bundles.

She looked up at him, her blue eyes shimmering with tears. “One hundred ninety-five dollars,” she said, her voice breaking.

Gold let out a low whistle.

“I haven't seen that much money all at once in a long time.”

“Me neither,” he confessed.

They stared at the riches in front of them. If they had any honor, they’d return the money and the truck to their rightful owners, but Gold didn’t think he’d have the heart to do it and Belle, when she was consulted, merely shook her head, guilt coloring her face as she confessed that she didn’t want to return it either.

They were quiet for a long time, thinking. Gold stretched out his leg, wincing at the throbbing in his ankle — the last jump from the train hadn’t done him any favors nor had spending half the day with his foot pressed against a gas pedal. No matter, he would have been doing something that afternoon to make it scream at him  — working or walking, both exacerbated the problem, but the day wouldn’t have ended spent by the side of one of his only friends from his former life if he’d stayed on the B&M. His eyes darted back to Belle every so often as she stared into the fire. She was chewing on her bottom lip, her forehead creased with worry and a look of sadness covered her eyes.

Gold felt sorry for it. Her life had changed drastically that morning, now she was on the run with a lame, middle-aged man who had nothing to give her except the advice to stay away from Storybrooke from now on. Poor payment for her company, he thought, looking back down at the dirty toe poking out of his shoe. He had nothing, he was nothing. But, Belle seemed to wish to stick with him for the time being and he was glad of it. Her company would be welcome in his lonely existence for as long as she wished to stick it out — two tumbleweeds rolling wherever the wind blew them.

It grew dark, the summer sun disappearing leaving them in the blue hour where the branches loomed black against the cobalt blue of the darkening sky. Belle had a packet of crackers in her pocket which she willingly share with him, their fingers brushing up against each others she they passed it back and forth and he had a teaspoon of sugar folded up into half a sheet of paper that he’d saved from a day job washing dishes he’d worked three weeks back. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing either.

They sat in companionable silence as the fire cracked and burned, the first time Gold had had an actual companion since the banks failed and it was nice to have someone close by even if no one said anything else for the rest of the night. He’d missed people. Well, there had been people enough on the trains and in the jails, but they weren’t friendly faces.  

He fed bundles of twigs into the fire as the night wore on, his belly gnawing hungrily at him now that there was a bit of something in it and he was at the point where he’d begun to wish he hadn’t eaten anything at all instead of the insufficient portion Belle was generous enough to share. He worried that she was aching, too. She was quiet and he remembered her as being quite the chatterbox when her nose wasn’t stuffed into a book. Perhaps she was just trying to conserve energy or she just plain didn’t feel like talking. It was fine. He was happy for her company.

“He wasn’t the first,” Belle said, quietly, at long last, when the night wore on and Gold was beginning to feel the pull of sleep.

Her voice so soft he could barely hear it over the crackling of the fire and he looked at her in confusion at first, then his heart turned to stone as he realized who and what she was talking about. What had her life become since he’d dismissed her? “Who? Spencer?”

“Yeah.” She sniffled, wiping her nose on her shoulder. “I didn’t… I didn’t do it a lot, but I did it. Sometimes. A couple times when things were bad and I didn’t have any other way…” she trailed off, wrapping her arms around her knees and laying her head against them.

“Hey,” he said, taking her hand in his, feeling the soft warmth press against his. “ _Hey_ , you’re not the only one who’s had to do things to survive. There’s no shame in that.” He’d had more than his fair share of morally questionable activities over his life, a few outright illegal and reprehensible, but he knew the desperation which drove a person to commit such acts. Knew the bone-deep hunger that threw caution and reason to the wind in an attempt to find a better life even for a moment. He couldn’t blame Belle for doing what she needed to do. He’d have done the same.

“Were you-were you ever hurt?” he asked because if she was then he’d have to spend some time tracking the men down to make them pay. Somehow he would find them and somehow he would make their lives unlivable.

“No. They… it wasn’t the first time I’ve had sex, I’m not-I’m not a virgin. I mean I wasn’t at the time, but… No, they didn’t hurt me. My pride maybe and my self-respect definitely, but that’s me not them.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, nodding silently. A fat, glistening tear rolled down her nose until it dripped onto her skirt. “The thing is, I’d have gone through with it if it were just about me,” she told him. “The library closed so long ago and I haven’t been able to find any work since. I went to him looking for a job. I thought-I thought I could do some kind of clerical work at the bank. I’m good with numbers, I’m trust worthy and I’m a hard worker, but he wanted a baby. No, _she_ wanted a baby, _he_ only wanted something he could use. I just couldn’t.”

“The funny thing is,” she went on adamantly. “Is that I was thinking of you this morning. At the bank, you know?” she said, glancing up at him for a second before turning her head away to stare at the fire. “I kept thinking about how kind you were and how, when I took the job, people were warning me. They’d say, “Belle, look out for Gold. He’ll have you on your back before the day is out,” except you never even once treated me inappropriately. Not one time, Mr. Gold. And here is Mr. Spencer, so respected and important and he wants to buy me. Not even me, he wanted my body and my baby as if I wasn’t anything worth considering. I thought how it wasn’t right that the world thought so poorly of you and so well of him and that I didn’t even matter. That’s when I snapped.” She took a deep shuddering breath and let it out slowly, turning her head on her knees to look at him.

“And then you were there, waiting for me, like an angel.”

Gold snorted. No one could ever accuse him of being an angel.

“No, I mean it,” Belle said, earnestly. “It can’t be a coincidence that you chose today to stop at Storybrooke. I _needed_ you, Mr. Gold and you were there, don’t you see?”

He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head, the strands tickling his nose and he smiled, burying it into the soft cloud of her hair. “Yes,” he said even though he didn’t see, not really, not in the way she wanted him to. What he saw was a lonely and scared woman who needed his help and he desperately needed hers, too. What luck they found each other.

“Now what?” she asked, her face pressed against his jacket.

“Well, as I see it we could do one of three things. One, send it all back to the bank. Two, divide it up and go our separate ways.”

“What's the third option?”

He licked his lips. “Stick together.”

“I like that one,” she said, quickly. “I don’t like being on my own very much.”

“Me neither,” he agreed.

* * *

 

“I never expected that from you,” he said when the fire had died down and they lay curled up together, her head resting against his shoulder and his arms wrapped around her. The thin blanket that made up his bedroll was barely sufficient, but with Belle still warm from the fire and the dying embers giving off heat, it seemed more than enough to get through the night. For the first time in a long time Gold felt at peace with the world. “When you worked for me. I wouldn’t have asked that of you.”

“No,” she replied sleepily. “But, if you had I wouldn't have robbed you.”

He chuckled silently. “That's good to know.”

He thought she’d fallen asleep then, she was so quiet, but she lifted her chin, blinked her eyes at him and softly asked the one question he’d been dreading all day, “Hey, Mr. Gold? What happened to Bae?”

The tears fell, then, thick and fast and painful, wetting Belle’s hair down while he struggled to compose himself. “He’s gone. Milah divorced me and took him shortly after you left. Haven’t seen him since.”

“But it’s been four years!”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“...No. Last I heard, they were in Boston, but that was so long ago now...”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gold,” she began, but he cut her off.

“Not your fault,” he said, squeezing her.

“But I’m sorry anyway. You were a good father,” she told him.

“Yeah, I was all right.”

Belle stayed silent after that and he waited until he heard the steady and soft breathing as she slept before he broke down.

* * *

 

One hundred ninety-five dollars went a long way towards their comfort and, after they did a bit of sleuthing, they mailed a good chunk of it to the owner of their truck to make up for stealing it. They still had enough to buy new clothes and some staples with plenty left over. They felt rich and they felt giddy with their ill-gotten gains.

Gold nearly cried when he slipped his feet into a pair of new boots. It had been so long since he had anything new to call his own and he stared in awe at how much better he felt already. A new suit, a fresh shirt and collar, and a haircut and shave and he was a new man. Or his old self, he thought as he looked at his reflection critically in the mirror at the Montgomery Wards in Bangor, the salesman falling over himself to help him buy more items than he possibly needed. He’d aged terribly, he thought as he took stock of his image. His hair was grayer than it ever and there were lines etched into his tanned face that hadn’t been there before. Still, there was a spring in his step a he walked out of the department store, the money burning a hole in his pocket. He expected a pang of regret, but he felt too good to be remorseful.

He left his old shoes on top of the trash can lid for the next poor bum that wandered by. Someone might need them, someone worse off than him who just needed a hand up in the world. As an afterthought, he tucked a dollar bill into each of the shoes then walked off, his new life waiting for him.

He slipped pennies to children. Those that looked like it had been awhile since they had a full belly or new shoes or just because their eyes reminded him of his son’s. He gave a couple of bucks to the women who looked worn out and ready to collapse from trying to keep their families together and to men who looked like they were minutes away from collapsing. It wasn’t much, but two dollars could go a long way if someone was clever. A loaf of bread only cost a nickel and a pound of beef a dime. Two dollars might be the difference between life and death for someone without a penny to his name.

Belle slipped him an allowance each day, a wad of singles folded up and tucked into a pocket, and watched with some pride as he made someone’s life better even if it was just for a day. She’d taken some for herself having left everything she had behind in Storybrooke. She chose a few pretty dresses and a light sweater for the summer nights, but the bulk of her personal spending went toward books. She bought a small, battered trunk from a farmer’s wife in which to store her books and Gold teased her about her library on wheels whenever she opened it up to add to her hoard, but he gladly listened to her soft voice as she read aloud every night before their fire had died down and they often found themselves in the morning tangled up in each others arms with a book on top of them. Waking up to her sweet face had become the best part of his day and the easy way she let him insert himself into her life made his heart feel hotter and lighter and more free than it had in decades.

They slept outdoors most of the time, leading a nomadic life not wanting to leave a trail behind them, but sometimes, when it rained or when the town looked like it might be a quiet one and there were available rooms at a boarding house, they stayed for a day or two, always leaving with extra money discretely placed underneath a bowl on a dresser.

They’d been spending their days idly, stopping by small hamlets and giving away more than they spent on themselves. Gold knew they were being foolish, they should have saved every penny they had, but then they’d pass by a ramshackle cottage just overflowing with ragged children and Gold didn’t even have to ask Belle anymore, he’d pull over and she’d set a dollar or so on a stump just off the road with a rock holding it down and then they’d be off until the next town and the next shack and the next dollar.

Gold had begun to feel his soul open up again now that Belle was with him. Her smiling charm and optimistic outlook grew on him until he found he was eager to think of the future now instead of dread it. He began to think that he might be reunited with his son now that he was no longer a broke hobo riding the rails. Perhaps he’d be able to buy a small farm and have Bae during the summertime. He spoke of this with Belle and her eyes lit up enthusiastically, expanding on the farmhouse to include a library for her and a treehouse out back for Bae with some animals to keep them all company and the way she didn’t even give it a thought, that of course she would be with them, made a ribbon of hope unfurl in his chest. The picture she painted of a small family together seemed like a dream to him, something so elusive and wonderful and precious that he would give anything to realize it.

His future was tied with hers now and he looked forward to the day when it would become a reality. Maybe she could even grow to love him as he was beginning to learn to love her. He felt the pull towards her from the very first, but he’d never acted upon it. Despite their lifestyle and their closeness, it felt wrong to take advantage of her sweet and affectionate nature by demanding more.

Sometimes, she looked at him as if he held stars in his hands, plucked down from the heavens just for her, but surely that was just his imagination. He had become so good at pretending that it only took a half step further to think that she cared for him romantically. Belle might feel beholden for his help in escaping the bank manager, but that only went so far. Besides, he thought, bitterly, he didn’t want her feelings to develop from any indebtedness she might feel. He’d rather they stayed as they were than to suffer the knowledge that she was only with him out of misplaced obligation. So when they talked of their imaginary future, he always spoke as if she stayed as his housekeeper as she had been before. To expect any more would be to wish for the moon.

His brain telling his heart to stop its yearning went about as well as expected and before long, he knew he was in too deep. Belle was everything to him. Her smile lit him up from the inside and the sound of her voice as she read at night would send his heart thrumming in his chest as he listened to the soft cadence of her speech. She was tender and sweet and caring and it was impossible to not love her — he couldn’t even try to fight it any more. He would follow wherever she wished to go and would stay with her until she chose otherwise. To do anything else was unthinkable.

* * *

 

After a little over a month of traveling rough from town to town, their cash had dwindled back down to four dollars and it was now time to figure out what to do next. They both wanted to settle down, but there was also the temptation to try their luck at holding up another bank. It seemed too easy to walk in with a gun in hand and a car waiting outside, knock the place over, and escape with a bag of cash. And, they reasoned, if they gave it away, they were doing more good than harm, right?

They fought over who would do the actual robbery. Belle thought she would be quicker since Gold walked with a cane, but he hated putting her in that kind of danger. Still, she insisted, adamant that they could do this — in and out — before anyone knew what happened. He agreed reluctantly, insisting that she take every precaution inside. If there was more than one guard, or if there was any danger to herself, she would walk back out of the bank empty handed and they would move on to the next town. He would be waiting outside with the truck running, a full tank of gas, ready to drive off in their escape.

It worked perfectly the first time and the second and third until they’d gained a reputation stateside as The Beauty and her Beast. The local press had a field day writing about the beautiful woman who dared to rob a bank and her skilled driver accomplice who made sure they would escape in a trail of dust as the only proof that they had ever been there at all. Belle laughed at the sensationalized write ups and the exaggerated accounts, but Gold had taken to calling her Beauty whenever they reached a bank they were going to hold up. It wasn’t far off from her real name anyway.

Gold would never admit it aloud, but whenever Belle came running out of a bank with her hair flying behind her and her eyes bright with excitement and holding a heavy bag of money, he wanted her more than anything. Her sense of adventure and daring was offset by her kindness and generosity and it was hours before he would be able to look at her again without embarrassing himself.

They had amassed a tidy little fortune, enough to see them through many years even as they gave it away, but Belle was having too much fun to stop and Gold didn’t like to deny her any pleasure, so they kept at it despite his misgivings that they were going too far.

Their routine was so well established that they grew over-confident and the inevitable happened; there was the sound of gunshots and shouting before Belle came stumbling out of the bank clutching her arm with a stream blood dripping down to drip off her elbow, her face ashen. She hopped into the car, staring at him in distress.

“Just a graze,” she said, but he shook his head at her, his foot pressing against the gas pedal until it was flat on the floor, turning the corner at a pace that should have toppled the truck, but he willed it to stay upright, driving faster than he ever had before.

“What happened?” he barked, feeling his heart stop in his chest at the sight of her blood.

“They were expecting us,” she said, tightly. “We robbed too many too close together and they were prepared.”

He let out a string of curses. He should have known this would happen. They had been greedy, that was the thing. If they’d just kept the money they first had then Belle wouldn’t have gotten shot and they would be able to live peacefully someplace in another state without the threat of jail or death hanging over their heads. Now, she was bleeding and they had no place to go that was safe. She wrapped her handkerchief around the wound, pressing her lips together against the pain as they drove over the bumpy road.

He kept an eye on her as he drove, blindly turning down any likely looking avenue until he could find a place that looked safe. The problem is, nothing looked safe. They lived transient lives, leaving no name, making no friends, and it wasn’t until Belle cried out that he stomped on the brakes in front of a small cottage damning himself to hell all the while.

He hopped down, his ankle screaming in pain at the sudden abuse, and ran to the door, pounding on it with heavy fists until he heard the cry of a small child and the unmistakeable sound of stomping feet and a muttering of invectives against whomever it was that knocked.

An irate woman, short and heavy with child opened it up, a shotgun pointed at his nose. “You woke the baby,” she growled at him, but he shook his head urgently.

“Please,” he said, holding his hands up. “She’s been hurt,” he sputtered out, nodding towards the truck and the woman glanced over his shoulder. Her eyes widened in surprise and recognition then lowered the shotgun from his face, propping it up against the doorjamb before shoving past Gold and waddling into the front yard.

“David!” she hollered, her voice louder than he expected given her tiny stature, but, at the sound of her urgent call, a man came barreling around the side of the house as Gold led her to Belle and then he was pushed back as this man and his wife helped her out of the truck and into their home.

The man, David, came back out, wiping his hands against his pant leg. “You’ll want to drive your truck out to the barn,” he said, gravely. “No one will see find it there.”

Gold didn’t have time to think about it, but climbed back into the vehicle and followed David, who rolled the barn door open just enough for him to slip through then closed it again just as quickly. The barn was dark and he could hear the gentle lowing of a cow and the nickering of a draft horse inside, startled by the sudden entrance of the noisy contraption.

David was waiting for him with burlap sacks to drape over the truck and then, when that was done, climbed up to the loft to pitch hay on top of it. Gold stood there, open-mouthed as this was done in as business-like manner as a day at the market. When the man was finished, there was only a large stack of hay and no amount of his truck to be seen and it was then that Gold began to worry that he’d brought Belle into the hands of murderers instead of the help she needed.

David slid down the ladder with practiced ease and came over, brushing his hands off on his overalls as he walked. “Mary Margaret will have her in the back room,” he said, nodding towards the door that from the barn and into the attached house.

Gold waited politely while David washed his hands at the sink, then took his turn, all the while dreading the explanations he was about to give. He was a good liar, but his mind couldn’t seem to come up with anything that would sound plausible for why he’d shown up outside their door with a woman bleeding from a gunshot wound. he was too worried about Belle to think clearly and he was growing more afraid that they would summon the police to haul them both to jail before an hour was out.

David excused himself to go tend to the crying baby and Gold had a chance to escape now that there was no one to stop him, but he would never leave Belle. He would have to try to figure out a way to sneak her out of the house with him. They could run up to Canada then and be safe from any state patrol that might be after them. And, if he couldn’t leave with Belle, then he would take his chances here with these people.

The baby had quieted down and the only sound in the house was the ticking of a clock on the wall and the sound of distant pacing in a back room, probably David with the baby Gold figured. He stood in the front parlor with his hat in his hand and waited for an anguishing amount of time before the woman, Mary Margaret, came back out smiling up at him before she carefully lowered herself onto a rocking chair by the window. She looked to be about ready to pop out whatever child she was pregnant with and Gold hoped that they would be long gone before that happened.

“You can sit, Mr…” she said, lifting an eyebrow at him.

“Uh…” Damn! He should have at least come up with a name to give her and he cursed at himself while he tried to think of a false name before the silence grew to be embarrassing.

“It’s okay. We know who you are,” she said, her face dimpling up at him. “You’re Beauty and the Beast, bank robbers. Except,” she said with a twinkle in her dark eyes. “We’ve been calling you Robin Hood and Maid Marian around here.”

“I-I beg your pardon?” he asked, flummoxed. It was the first he’d heard either of those monikers applied to them.  
  


She laughed at him, shaking her head. “Well, it’s like this, you two have been much talked about all summer long back in these parts. Robbing the banks and giving the money away? That’s right out of a fairy tale, but the rumors started with Granny down in the valley over by Storybrooke and traveled all this way.”

“What rumors?”

“Well, you left five dollars at her door,” she told him simply.

They’d left a lot of money at a lot of doors that summer, so he just shook his head at her.

“Little Ruby had the whooping cough, but they couldn’t afford the medicine.” At his blank stare she continued. “You saved that child’s life, Mr. Gold,” she told him gently.

His knees went out and he sat heavily on the wooden chair. “I did?”

“And Ashley down by Bangor, their goat died and she didn’t have any way to get milk  for her babies anymore, but you left money on a fence post just outside her house and it was enough for a goat and three chickens. And the Gepettos? You fed them for two weeks with what you left. The—”

He held up a shaking hand to stop her from saying anything else, then covered his mouth with it. All this talk about saving lives was overwhelming and it was difficult to reconcile their little game of bank robbers and the philanthropic reputation they had gained because of it. He looked up at a soft sound of a baby’s coo and saw David standing in the hallway watching, their baby sitting on his hip.

“My name’s Mr. Gold,” he told them, looking down at his nice, new boots.

“You’ve changed quite a few lives around these parts, Mr. Gold,” David said. “It wouldn’t be right to turn you in.”

“I… I think I need to see Belle,” he said, dazed.

They showed him into a back room, then left them to their privacy. Belle was lying on a narrow bed, propped up with more pillows than a family this poor should have owned, looking pale and weak, but at the sight of Gold, her face brightened. She tried to sit up, but he rushed to her side and sat on the bed next to her, taking her hand in his.

He felt the tears well up, then, now that he knew she was safe and they ran down his face before he could stop the shameful display. She pulled at him until his head lay against her shoulder and held him as he shook with the tears,

“I’m so sorry, Belle. I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s not your fault, Wallace,” she said, the rare occasion that she used his given name. “You didn’t shoot me. You didn’t force me into the bank. And it’s just a scratch, really. Look,” she said, trying to show him the clean bandage on her arm. “It’s fine.”

Just a scratch, he thought incredulously. Even a scratch was unforgivable and he shook his head, sniffling. “We can’t do this anymore,” he said. “Belle, we have to stop.”

She nodded her head. “You’re right. Next time it might be worse. But they know who we are now, in a way. They’re bound to find us eventually. What should we do? How are we going to get Bae if we can’t show our faces in public?”

Gold felt as if he’d been punched. He hadn’t even thought of the consequences this might have wrought in regards to Bae. He had just thought he could pay Milah off and bring his son home to their fairy tale cottage and they would live happily ever after. But today’s events had proven that they were more well-known than they had anticipated. No judge would grant him custody and Bae might not even want to live with a father who was a criminal.

There had to be away, he thought, rubbing at his eyes with the pads of his fingers. He felt Belle pull at his sleeve and he dropped his hands, looking at her.

She was still so beautiful, even after this scare and the frantic, reckless way he’d driven, but she looked up at him, distressed and uncomfortable as she flushed in embarrassment.

“Belle, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” he asked and his heart dropped because surely this would be the time when she would tell him they should go on their separate ways.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head with a rueful smile. “I just have something to tell you and I’m trying to gather up my confidence to say it.”

He stared at her. “Belle, you’re the bravest person I know,” he said, taking her hand and softly kissing her knuckles. She pulled at him insistently until he stretched out alongside her and she could lay her head on his shoulder.

He held her close, with his cheek against the top of her head, holding back his tears, waiting for her to gather up her bravery and send him away.

“I'd have taken you up on it,” she whispered, finally.

That wasn’t what he expected in the least and he had no idea what she was talking about. “The? _What_?”

He felt her laugh silently before she clarified, “When I worked for you. If you’d asked me to-to sleep with you. I would have. Gladly.”

His breath left him in a whoosh as he croaked out, “Me?”

“Well, certainly not Milah,” she teased.

“ _I_ didn’t even sleep with Milah,” he confessed, his mind whirling with this new information.

“I know,” she told him quietly. “She was a fool. Didn’t treat you right and you were so kind to her. So patient and good with Bae. It hurt me to see her

“Well,” he said after a minute, his mind barely registering what she was telling him. It seemed incredible to him, like something out of a fairytale. “I wasn’t the right husband for her.”

“Maybe. But she could have been nicer.”

“Yeah.” He lay there, breathing heavily as he thought about what she’d said. “Is that-is that the truth?” he asked. “About how you… would have?”

She twisted her head to look at him from his shoulder. “Yes. I grew to care a great deal about you and… well, it’s only grown now that we’ve spent the summer together like this.”

“Oh, Belle,” he groaned, leaning down to press a kiss to her dry lips. “I love you so much,” he murmured as he plucked tiny, sipping kisses from her mouth. “I never even dreamt—”

“I did. And… well, maybe you weren’t the best husband for Milah, but... I think you would be the best sort of husband for me.” She propped herself up on her elbow to look down at him, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.

“Are you asking me to marry you?” he asked in bewilderment.

She nodded silently, a tear dislodging to run a trail down her dusty cheek. “If you want to,” she said, biting her lip in her worry that she presumed too much.

He reached up with a shaking hand to carefully pull the lip out from under her teeth, rubbing at it with the pad of his thumb. “Belle, I would love nothing more than to be married to you — to be your husband.”

Her breath hitched as a wide smile spread across her mouth, her eyes shining as the tears fell freely then, dropping onto his own cheeks that were still wet from when he’d sobbed against her shoulder. They mingled together and ran, unheeded, down into the pillow as he discovered how much he enjoyed kissing Belle.

Belle’s wound really was nothing more than a deep scratch — a lucky miss in her haste to escape the sheriff’s deputies waiting for them and she was ready to leave the Nolan’s hospitality as soon as they had finished discussing their future. The Nolans, however, insisted that they at least spend the night, sending word to several people nearby who wanted to pay their respects and gratitude to the erstwhile bank robbers and before the sun had set, the house was teaming with families and laughter and music as someone had brought along a fiddle and Gold found himself dancing with several young ladies, all looking up at him as if he was a knight in shining armor.

It all felt very surreal to Gold, who had never had anyone look up to him other than his son Bae.

He kept close to Belle as much as he was able and, as the night wore on, they managed to slip away to the barn where he showed her the pile of hay that hid their truck. Belle looked at him with a sly smirk and then, together, they got to work digging it out, brushing off the hay and shaking out the burlap sacks until there was a big enough hole to drive the truck through.

No one would hear them over the music and the ruckus inside so they pushed the truck out of the barn and started it up, hay flying away as they drove out of the yard and onto the road.

They left a hundred dollars tucked inside the doorjamb for the Nolans to find. Probably they would have refused money if they’d offered, but, seeing as they weren’t there to object, Gold felt no qualms about leaving it. A small part of him felt guilty about leaving without saying goodbye, but Belle pointed out that it would just add to their mysterious reputation and to hush before they got caught sneaking out.

* * *

 

Three days later saw them standing off the side of the road next to a sharp drop-off. The wind was blowing hard that morning and Belle had a difficult time keeping her modesty as she helped Gold roll the truck to the edge of the road. They’d gone over their plan until it felt as solid as they could get it, thinking of every trap they might run into along the way, but Belle felt it would work, and Gold felt that Belle was right, so they quietly bought a small sedan and then laid a trail for the police to find.

Belle’s face was well-known by then and she allowed herself to be seen by people who weren’t as friendly as the Nolans and they had about a two hour’s head start before they got caught. Gold met her at a hidden turn in the road and then she followed him in the car to their selected point.

It was easy work shoving the truck off the cliff and watching as it fell to the bottom of the ravine with a deafening crash was a spectacular sight they wouldn’t soon forget. They could make out the fluttering of a few bills they stuffed into the beaten sack they left in the cab as a decoy — as well as the gun — before they were washed away by the river.

“It’d be better if it caught fire,” he muttered as the dust cleared and they could see the wreckage below. “They’d think we burned in the crash and stop looking for us.”

“I’m not climbing down there to set a match to it,” she said, dubiously. “And we can’t risk setting the entire state on fire anyway.”

He leaned over, farther, Belle clutching at his jacket lest he tumble over after it. “No, by the time they get to it, it’ll be so broken up that they’ll think we were washed away by the river and eaten by the fish. Or a bear,” he said, turning to her, his eyes twinkling.

“They aren’t that stupid,” she said.

“I beg to differ. They’ll see exactly what we want them to see,” he said, reassuringly, flinging his hat up into a low tree branch where it would be sure to catch someone’s eye.

She smiled up at him brightly, holding a hand to her hat that threatened to fly away in the wind. “Now we go find Bae?”

“Now we go find Bae,” he said, warmly.

“Think we’ll win?”

“Dunno, but I have to try. Milah will make a fuss.”

“She always did,” Belle said, bumping him with her shoulder.

“That’s true,” he said with wry smile. “I won’t take him away from her. But I want to be a part of his life.”

“You’re his father and you’re a good man,” she said, poking at his chest. “I think he needs you just as much as you need him.”

They walked hand in hand to their new car where he held the door open for her. She gave him a kiss at the corner of his mouth.

“You saved me, you know,” she told him, a mysterious glint to her smile as if she had a joke she was dying to tell him.

He shook his head at her. He hated telling her she was wrong, but sometimes he had to do it. “Actually,” he said, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “I believe _you_ saved _me_.”


End file.
